Here at Work In Startups, we’re on a mission to champion the best and most exciting startups in the UK. To support this, we’re starting a new blog series highlighting some of the most innovative and fast-growing startups around. Follow us as we interview startup founders and employees across the country and find out more […]

Startup to Watch: MySense

Here at Work In Startups, we’re on a mission to champion the best and most exciting startups in the UK. To support this, we’re starting a new blog series highlighting some of the most innovative and fast-growing startups around. Follow us as we interview startup founders and employees across the country and find out more about their goals and ambitions, what the future holds and (for all you startup jobseekers out there looking for the inside scoop) what they look for in a prospective employee.

This week, we’re interviewing Lucie Glenday, Founder and CEO of MySense.ai, a wellbeing analytics platform that helps users achieve an awareness of how subtle changes in their health can manifest as changes in wellbeing and their ability to cope in their day to day lives. MySense is growing rapidly thanks to a number of global partnerships and a strong, capable team. They are on track to have their wellbeing platform in over 100,000 homes around the world. We look forward to seeing what they achieve (and they’re hiring for a Frontend Lead, a Senior Severless AWS/NodeJS Engineer, a Business Analyst and a Java/IoT/Linux Engineer on Work in Startups!)

What would you say MySense’s mission is?

To help people with vulnerabilities live as independently as possible for as long as possible with dignity. Whether you are 80 or 25, have complex physical or mental health concerns, we want to give you the tools and information necessary to be as independent as possible. We also want to give these tools and information to your support network.

What are your values as a startup employer?

Being positively brilliant! We see ourselves as a family that doesn’t follow the crowd. We aren’t afraid to ask difficult questions and be wrong – this is important for growth and development.

As for the people that we recruit, we put people’s personability before skills and experience. We firmly believe that you can teach skills and experience, but it’s harder (if not impossible) to change someone’s personality and attitude. In conjunction with this, we really value compulsive learners – so people that are always hungry to learn more and grow. Lastly, we look for people that are respectful and actively listen. There are people that listen but you know they’re not really taking it in. We want people that absorb and digest what others are saying before showcasing their own views and opinions.

We have a 5/5 rating on Glassdoor, which I believe is reflective of the time and effort we put into ensuring we get the right people through the door. We ask a lot of tough questions in the interview process and it’s definitely quite intense, but it’s a key reason we have such an incredible work force. It’s also partly why we have such a low churn rate – until a month ago we didn’t lose anyone we didn’t want to lose! This is also reflective of the fact that staff love working here and we invest in our employees.

We are also a globally focused work force and continually challenge each other in terms of our cultural biases, which is another great thing about MySense. For example, we don’t want to just focus on white, western assumptions of wellbeing – we want to challenge these from an Asian and African perspective to develop a more holistic understanding of the term.

Separately, we want to make sure that MySense is a safe place to work, whilst also being inspiring and challenging. This is especially important given that no startup is ever fully liquid and there can be lots of stresses. I think we’ve managed to find the right balance and developed a great, supportive culture where we all respect one another and are motivated by the same mission.

What has your growth been like?

I founded MySense in 2016, so it’s three and a half years old now! In the first year it was just me, but we’ve since grown to 42 people and growth projections are huge for the upcoming financial year. We’ve partnered with a number of care organisations in the UK and we’re rapidly expanding our global partnerships – it’s an exciting time.

We recruit a real mixed bag of people because we’re after a load of different skills. We have deep technical engineers, ops and finance managers, supply chain type people, a commercial team and clinicians! We’re looking to expand on all fronts over the next few years.

What does 2020 hold in store for MySense?

As I’ve mentioned above, we’re growing! We’re also extremely fortunate with our partners in the market. We have some large partners in the network and large contracts, but we’re also looking to expand in the marketplace and become a lot more visible.

We want to spend a lot more time on the brand elements, for example on product placement and we’re looking forward to working with large companies like McCarthy & Stone. Expect to see roll out across those companies in 2020!

We’re also expanding into two new territories. MySense was incorporated in Canada last year and we’re launching in the Canadian market later in the year! Plans to launch in a European territory are also in the works.

Do you have any advice for people thinking about founding their own startup but currently unsure?

There’s a huge element of luck, which can’t be underplayed. Often, it’s about being at the right place at the right time. What works for one person, in virtue of the people they have spoken to and know etc., won’t work for another.

If it doesn’t work, just keep going! Tenacity is key – you’ve got to be a bulldozer and believe in yourself. There will be people along the way that won’t believe in your vision and won’t think it’s going to work. If you can keep going despite this and tune out the white noise – this is a great step!

Also, don’t underestimate the power of a great team. If you have a core team of brilliant people around you that share your vision, this counts for a huge amount. They challenge you on a daily basis, and you’ve got to make sure you are believing in them and their ability as much as you believe in yourself!

And lastly, founding a startup is very hard work. I have three kids and I’m always busy. I take the kids to school first thing in the morning, I then go to work and do a full day at the office before coming home in the evenings and putting food on the table. After I’ve put the kids to bed, I then keep working! If I decided to work a 9-5, MySense wouldn’t have happened – you’ve got to work really, really hard to make your dream a reality. It’s tough building something from the ground up!

Here at Work In Startups, we’re on a mission to champion the best and most exciting startups in the UK. To support this, we’re starting a new blog series highlighting some of the most innovative and fast-growing startups around. Follow us as we interview startup founders and employees across the country and find out more […]

Startup to Watch: Commusoft

Here at Work In Startups, we’re on a mission to champion the best and most exciting startups in the UK. To support this, we’re starting a new blog series highlighting some of the most innovative and fast-growing startups around. Follow us as we interview startup founders and employees across the country and find out more about their goals and ambitions, what the future holds and (for all you startup jobseekers out there looking for the inside scoop) what they look for in a prospective employee.

This week, we’re interviewing Jason Morjaria, Founder of Commusoft, a cloud-based workforce management solution for field service companies of all sizes including plumbers, gas and heating engineers, electricians and oil technicians. Commusoft is growing quickly, rapidly hiring and helping field service companies improve their value proposition.

What would you say Commusoft’s mission is?

To educate and empower field service companies to provide world class customer journeys. Field service companies traditionally have a bit of a bad rap in terms of how people perceive them. For example, when you call a plumbing company, you often wonder whether the plumber will turn up on time and get the job done in a timely matter. We want to get rid of this stigma and encourage good companies to provide good customer journeys.

When you call up a business and book a service, you have a number of interactions with them. How do they treat you? What do they say over the phone? Do they let you book the service right there and then? Once you’ve booked the service, do you get a confirmation straight away? Do you get a reminder a few days before the service? Do you know for certain that they will turn up? What about when they will turn up? Do you know what they’re like when they’re on site? Do they wear dirty boots on your carpet? All of these interaction points amalgamate into an experience that you have with this field services company. We want to educate them on how to ensure every one of these touchpoints comes with a brilliant customer experience.

It doesn’t matter how much tech you provide a business, if they don’t know how to execute on it then they’re ultimately not going to improve their business proposition. If they don’t schedule specific time slots or send well-written emails, regardless of the tech they have access to, customers will have a negative journey and, therefore, a negative overall experience. So we focus on educating our clients, implementing our job management software and reviewing their accounts and content. We have a whole team dedicated to producing marketing content for our clients, whether this be video content, blog posts or articles. We want to help them get into the shoes of their customers and ask “does what we’re doing make sense? Can we change anything?”

What are your employee values?

Definitely going “above and beyond” for our clients. This is pretty evident in our inbound content. We had one company call up the other day and say “we know you’re not Sage, but they suck at answering the phone, is there anything you can do?”, which I think is testimony to the amount of support we give our clients. They genuinely believed we would go above and beyond for them – which we would! Another support email came in asking us to consult on how their website looked, which has nothing to do with our business but they trust us and believe we can make their business more successful.

We also strongly value learning! From all the interviews we’ve conducted, every person we spoke to said they wanted to learn more, and we have an open policy about that. For example, someone in our Client Services Team was asking about SQL. She didn’t really understand it and wanted to learn more, so I set aside one hour with her in a conference room, explained it to her, and gave her tips about how to learn it. We feel people with scaleup jobs should be actively encouraged to show interest outside of their roles, and firmly believe that what you learn here shouldn’t necessarily be tied to what you do. This is exemplified by the fact that we also run cooking lessons. Cooking is a basic, fundamental skill and vital to leading a happy and healthy life – so we want our employees to know how to cook and look after themselves. We also invest significantly in our employees’ professional development. We regularly pay for formal training and conferences, which are especially important given how quickly we’ve grown. We’re adding new layers of management every year and we really don’t like the idea of someone becoming an ‘accidental manager’. If they have just started managing a team, we want to make sure that they’re supported so we have consultants come in and teach them how to be managers. We’ve loosely done this forever, but it was when we wrote it down and thought about it properly that we realised how a few things that didn’t work three years ago can be attributed to people having insufficient training.

Additionally, we think employee wellness is extremely important and this is one of our core values. Lots of us go climbing together and many practise yoga regularly, however this isn’t what makes wellness one of our startup values. The fact that we invest in it is what makes it a core value: we pay for everyone’s gym membership, climbing or swimming, etc. We also give our employees the space to do activities: if they want to attend a yoga class in the morning and get in at 10, that’s completely ok, providing they’re adept at managing their own time and make up the hours elsewhere.

Can you tell us a bit about your growth over the past few years? What’s next for Commusoft?

I started Commusoft in 2006 while I was at Aston University but I began writing code well before then. I had been writing code with one field services client in mind and realised that there was a strong business case for the software I was developing. As part of my degree, I had to do a placement year, so I went to the business school and asked if I could run my own business during that year instead. No one had ever asked to do that before, so it was quite novel, but after giving it a lot of thought they agreed. It’s funny because since then they’ve actually started encouraging entrepreneurial activity!

I was meant to return for my final year after my ‘placement’ – but I never went back. By then I had taken on 30 clients and Commusoft was doing pretty well, so there didn’t really seem any point in returning. I met our CTO, Raj, in 2008 and we grew Commusoft steadily until about 2013 – by then we had a fairly large number of clients and were turning over a million a year. I would say we properly focused on Commusoft in 2011/2012 – that was the year we decided to completely rewrite our product base, which was expensive and arduous, but so, so worth it. We launched our re-written product in 2016 and our growth since then has been pretty astonishing: we’ve more than doubled in size to 54 talented startup employees, and we expect to add another 50% to head count this year. We also opened an office in Chicago last September – so have started expanding overseas. There’s so much potential to grow the business and we’re in a great position: bootstrapped and turning a profit!

As for what the future holds, we’re doing a couple of things. We’re firstly trying to align more of our team in one direction, which is especially important given the number of people that will join the company this year. We’re doing this by defining and redefining our mission and values.

We’re also looking to expand our US operations. It’s a new market and new team, so it’s a great learning opportunity – like building another new startup altogether, but bringing to bear the lessons we’ve learnt already. We’re trying to figure out how to best serve our US clients, and grow our client base. In the UK, our work in 2020 is all about scale. We’re looking to bring on as many new clients as possible and we’re seeing our product develop even further. We have companies that have grown with our business and don’t want them to outgrow us! As such, we’re reinvesting in engineering to make sure our product can grow and develop with our clients.

What do you look for in a prospective employee?

It entirely depends on the role. However, attitude is probably number one and this is really hard to gauge in an interview. When the interview is only an hour long, you have to glean as much as you can, but even then you might not get the full picture. I firmly believe that most people can be taught anything, providing they have the right attitude – so turn up enthusiastic, having done a lot of research into Commusoft – and you’ll do well here. However, I do think experience is fairly important as well. If you’re new to your career, or new to the natural demands of a startup job in general, you probably don’t know what you want yet, so it’s more ambiguous whether you will enjoy the role. For example, client services can be one of the toughest roles. You have to deal with clients all day, every day, and they can be quite difficult at times. If you have experience in this role, you’re more likely to enjoy it.

We also look for people that are personable. We do the classic litmus test of “could I stand to be stranded in an airport with you?” – if the answer is yes, then you’d be a good fit for Commusoft. Additionally, we really value diversity. Our leadership team is 50/50 men/women and our whole company is almost 50% female – something we’d recommend every startup (and in fact every company) try and pursue. We also have people from all over the world working in our office.

Do you have any advice for people thinking about founding their own startup but currently unsure?

I think if you’re starting out with the intention to ‘found your own startup’ – you’re already on the wrong foot. Startups are not glamorous and you really do get your hands dirty, especially in the beginning. I once had to delete 25,000 records one at a time to resolve a problem, which was laborious but necessary. There was no one else but me who could do it.

Because it’s not glamorous, you have to be passionate about what you’re doing. When I started out, I liked coding and the product. Commusoft was a project of sorts that I put time and effort into because I loved it. It was only after I had developed it a bit that I thought maybe other people would be interested in it. It became a business a few years later and the rest is history.

If you don’t love it, then it’s going to be tough to stick with it. The first few years can be really difficult and you’ll likely make little money. If I told you you were going to make £50 a week doing it for a year, would you still pursue it? If you can do something for free and love it, only then should you start it!

Here at Work In Startups, we’re on a mission to champion the best and most exciting startups in the UK. To support this, we’re starting a new blog series highlighting some of the most innovative and fast-growing startups around. Follow us as we interview startup founders and employees across the country and find out more […]

Startup To Watch: Pasta Evangelists

Here at Work In Startups, we’re on a mission to champion the best and most exciting startups in the UK. To support this, we’re starting a new blog series highlighting some of the most innovative and fast-growing startups around. Follow us as we interview startup founders and employees across the country and find out more about their goals and ambitions, what the future holds and (for all you startup jobseekers out there looking for the inside scoop) what they look for in a prospective employee.

This week, we’re interviewing Alessandro Savelli, MD and Founder of Pasta Evangelists: a company on a mission to become the authority in fresh pasta in the UK. Pasta Evangelists is growing quickly, hiring just as fast and radically disrupting the way we think about and consume pasta in the UK. Giles Coran and Prue Leith rank among its supporters.

Hi Alessandro, what would you say Pasta Evangelists’ mission is?

Our mission is to make the best possible fresh pasta and sauces in the UK, thereby becoming the authority in fresh pasta across multiple channels. We want to spread the joy of high-quality, fresh, hand-crafted pasta!

Can you tell us about your recent growth? What’s next for Pasta Evangelists?

The business has grown considerably over the past few years. We tripled revenues in 2019 and they grew tenfold the year before that. We’re one of the fastest growing startups in the UK and expect this to continue. In fact, we’re making sure of it by investing in our product, hiring new people and expanding our number of distribution channels.

Our three broadest priorities in 2020 are: 1) to improve our profitability, 2) to execute our concession business and 3) to improve our online business by focusing on online subscribers. With regard to the first priority, we are working hard to improve our margins and therefore, whilst top line growth remains key, it’s not our main focus in 2020. With regard to the second priority, given how pasta is purchased in the UK, we are looking to sell across a broader range of different channels this year. We have concession stands in Harrods and M&S and want to execute on these this year. There’s also a strong demand for our pasta on Ocado and Deliveroo, so we’re going to focus on growing these channels as well.

Beyond 2020, we see ourselves expanding globally. We’re currently trying to conquer the UK market, but Asia, Europe and America are also in our sights! We’re also going to stick to just making pasta: it’s in our name and it’s what we’re good at. We don’t want to diversify into other areas just yet!

What are your values as a startup employer?

We don’t have any formal ‘values’ per se but, ultimately, people are here to be treated fairly. We want to provide the people in the team with a lot of learning opportunities and we thrive when people take ownership of tasks and push for more responsibility. We’re a diverse startup team and encourage creativity, outside-of-the-box thinking and alternate perspectives as much as possible. We also reward people for hard work and dedication!

What’s great about working at Pasta Evangelists?

We give people a lot of responsibility early on, which is great for self-starters and people that want to get stuck in. We move quickly and also invest in the people in our startup team and provide a lot of learning opportunities. Working with pasta is also fun because it’s a great product. If you love food, you’ll be in heaven here!

What do you look for in an employee?

We look for people that are really interested in what we do. We hate generic applications! If you’re a massive foodie, have written about us or like our pasta – we would love to hear from you!

We’re also looking for people that have a lot of energy, work hard and are keen to learn. If you’re driven, motivated and ambitious – you’ll do well at Pasta Evangelists!

Do you have any advice for young co-founders thinking about starting their own company but currently unsure?

Move as quickly as possible. Things always take longer than anticipated so it’s good to think ahead and plan accordingly. Also, starting a business is a bit like going to war: you need allies and a good team. Don’t go to war by yourself – if you have a team, advisors, supporters, partners and co founders, your chances of success are likely to increase.

Also, do something in a category that you have a specific interest in, not just in a category where you see a business opportunity. When you found a start up, you’re tied to it for a long time and the hours are long, so it helps if you are passionate about what you do! You will also come across as more authentic and credible if you genuinely love what you do.

On a separate note, we have several open positions at the moment! So check them out and if nothing interests you but you think you could add value to Pasta Evangelists – send us an email! We’d love to hear from you.

Starting a business is not easy! In fact, it’s darn right difficult, especially if it’s your first crack at founding a startup or if you don’t have much money / support to start with. There’s a reason 90% of startups fail… but you don’t have to be part of that club. Assuming you already have […]

5 Tips For Getting Your Startup Off The Ground

Starting a business is not easy! In fact, it’s darn right difficult, especially if it’s your first crack at founding a startup or if you don’t have much money / support to start with. There’s a reason 90% of startups fail… but you don’t have to be part of that club. Assuming you already have a great idea that you’re passionate about and think has the potential to make it big, here are 5 tips for getting your startup off the ground!

Save, save, save!

I cannot stress this enough. There’s a reason the average age of a successful startup founder is 45. They not only have the experience, but also (often) the savings to help their business succeed. The first few years of founding a startup can be pretty rough: you often make little to no money, struggle to secure funding and face the hurdles of developing an MVP. If you have savings, you can bootstrap something together and rest a little easier knowing that you have something to fall back on if things don’t quite work out. Alleviating the stress of “how can I afford next month’s rent?” will be seriously helpful when you’ll be stressed enough already with the startup!

Ask your friends and family for help

Your friends and family love you and trust you, and can provide a great deal of emotional and financial support during your startup journey. In the US, the second biggest source of seed funding, after personal savings and credit, is friends and family. So don’t be afraid to ask your loved ones for investment, a loan, or if they’re feeling especially generous… a gift! This can help you get the ball rolling and develop an MVP, and give you some great pitch practice when you run your business plan past them (which you definitely should be doing!).

On the emotional support side, founding a startup is tough and you’ll face challenges on a daily basis. It’s therefore super helpful to have a strong support system that you know you can rely on when the going gets tough. It also makes small (or big!) victories that much sweeter when you have people to celebrate with.

Cultivate resilience

Founding a startup is intensely rewarding… but it can also be extremely draining. You have a lot on your plate, likely work around the clock and encounter setbacks and failures on a daily basis. Those that persevere through it all are the ones that succeed.

But how, you may ask, can I cultivate resilience? Firstly, try and be as adaptable and flexible as you can to changing situations. You can plan for the future… but ultimately a lot of it is unpredictable. Whatever comes your way, tackle it with optimism and hardwork and you’ll do just fine. Secondly, be purposeful and mindful. Resilient people have clear goals, motivations and directions. These enable you to devise effective solutions during times of crisis.

Network!!

Networking is crucial. Reach out to any entrepreneurs you know, experts in the industry, financiers, people at the same stage in their startup journey as you, and anyone else you think could be useful! Talk to as many people as possible (without becoming that annoying, needy friend of course) and soak up their advice and feedback on your startup story to date. They’ll be great to bounce ideas off, and might even introduce you to potential investors and employees… which is invaluable. While ensuring you stay respectful and polite, don’t be afraid to send people emails, message them on Linkedin and attend startup conferences. The startup scene in London is incredibly welcoming and nurturing and can help you get started. People want you to succeed!

Have a bullet-proof business plan

If you want to secure venture funding, which can often be crucial for your startup’s success, you’ll need to develop a bullet-proof business plan.

Investors want to (1) understand how you plan to operate your business and (2) determine your projected growth rates and how they stand to gain by getting involved. They can’t do either of these things if you don’t have a developed business plan.

They want to see a clear overview of your business – the nuts and bolts who you are and what your startup mission is / will be. They also want to see some rational market analysis, including detailed research on your competitors, how you are positioned within this space, and your target audience. Additionally, you should definitely outline your organisational structure, mission and values, as well as how you plan on managing your company.

Perhaps the most important part of your business plan, however, is your financials. Do your best to construct a 3 to 5 year financial model, and make sure your predictions are realistic and not overinflated. Outline, if you can, when you think you’ll be profitable and how.

On a personal level, a clearly defined business plan will give you direction and a road-map to success. It will help you navigate challenges and seize opportunities!

So you’ve been interviewing for startup jobs for a few months and have received a few job offers (lucky you!). But how do you choose between the companies? Joining a startup poses risks and rewards, which is why it’s important to spend time weighing up the pros and cons of each job offer. Joining a […]

How to Pick the Right Startup to Join

So you’ve been interviewing for startup jobs for a few months and have received a few job offers (lucky you!). But how do you choose between the companies?

Joining a startup poses risks and rewards, which is why it’s important to spend time weighing up the pros and cons of each job offer. Joining a fast growing, innovative and well-run startup can really kickstart your career, open a lot of doors and provide you with a whole host of opportunities. However, joining a poorly managed, stagnating startup can lead to burnout, unhappiness and flagging motivation.

Through speaking to a lot of people, drawing on personal experiences and scouring the internet for the best advice, I’ve come to one key conclusion. When picking the right startup to join you should think like an investor.

This means, first and foremost, evaluating whether the startup’s mission and end product make sense to you. Is it something that you would use and/or could see others using? Try and determine whether what the startup builds is valuable to the world. I know this is a slightly fluffy statement, but do your research, and ask your peers and people with knowledge of the industry for their opinions. This can help you form a judgement. And if you don’t believe in the end mission, then it’s probably not right for you!

Secondly, look for evidence that the startup is already succeeding. Of course, if it’s in its early stages, data will likely be difficult to come by. But you should ask about early client wins and breakthroughs when your interviewing – does it sound like they’re making progress? When there is more public tangible data, look at growth. What trajectory are they on? This is more important than absolute figures.

Thirdly, evaluate how strong the team and the management are (in your mind). A startup’s success is often directly proportional to its founders ambitions. Have a dig into their credentials – do they have a strong academic / professional / entrepreneurial background, and come across as inspirational people you can truly learn from? Have they founded or been part of other “successful” startups? It’s certainly helpful if it shows that they know how to grow a company from the ground up. Also, investigate their leadership style when interviewing. Are they people of character? Are they tenacious? Are they approachable and do they foster a great company culture? If possible, read their blog posts and watch their interviews to better understand how they operate. This is important, as talented and driven people also recruit like minded individuals – so if the founders are of high calibre, then it’s likely the team will be too.

Once you have determined whether (or not!) you would invest in the startup based on these three initial areas, establish exactly who you would be working with and how they would support you. The smarter and more experienced your colleagues are, the more learning opportunities there will be. Great mentors also motivate you and provide opportunities for you to create impact. You can evaluate this by paying careful attention during your interview. Is your interviewer noticeably passionate about the mission? Are they switched on and engaged? It’s difficult to fake enthusiasm and drive.

Lastly, have they received investment? And if not, is there a good reason? When a company attains venture funding, it’s a big signal that it’s heading in the right direction and others have bought into its mission. Investors have made a (pretty expensive!) bet that it will be more valuable in the future. They’ve made this bet after conducting extensive market research, consulting experts, assessing company management and analysing the company’s data. In effect, they’ve carried out a lot of your research for you!!

An even BETTER signal is when the investors have a stellar reputation. The best VCs attract the best, most successful startups, so it’s really encouraging when the startup you are considering joining has big backers.

Here are a few of the biggest names in VC (there are hundreds of others, of course!):

Here at Work In Startups, we’re on a mission to champion the best and most exciting startups in the UK. To support this, we’re starting a new blog series highlighting some of the most innovative and fast-growing startups around. Follow us as we interview startup founders across the country and find out more about their […]

Startup To Watch: Verisart

Here at Work In Startups, we’re on a mission to champion the best and most exciting startups in the UK. To support this, we’re starting a new blog series highlighting some of the most innovative and fast-growing startups around. Follow us as we interview startup founders across the country and find out more about their goals and ambitions, what the future holds and (for all you startup jobseekers out there looking for the inside scoop) what they look for in a prospective employee.

This week, we’re interviewing Robert Norton, CEO and Founder of Verisart – the world’s leading platform for certifying and verifying artworks and collectibles using the Bitcoin blockchain. Verisart has just raised $2.5 million in seed funding and is growing fast, hiring equally as fast, and radically disrupting the art industry.

What would you say Verisart’s mission is? What are your values?

Our mission is to build trust and advance cultures by empowering people to secure objects of value and transact with confidence. Before founding Verisart, it was clear to me how widespread fraud was in the physical art business and how untrustworthy many of the parties were. I realised that image recognition, blockchain and museum-grade certification standards could be leveraged to change this – so this is what Verisart has set out to do! Through registering and tracking collectibles and artworks, authentic and fake artworks can be easily identified.

As for our values, our primary asset is our people and our strengths result from how we work together as a team. We need a great team to build great products. Our core values are our ‘Big T’s’: Time, Tenacity, Talking, Trust and Team. However, we are equally committed to the following:

· Forward Motion & First Principles: each failure brings us one step closer to success

· Interdependent: self-reliance and personal responsibility carry us so far but interdependence carries us further

· Responsibility: be a first responder and responsible for fixing things with integrity

· Merit: attract the world’s best talent and promote based on merit

You guys have achieved some fantastic growth! What’s next for Verisart?

First and foremost, we’re improving the tech that we already have. We’re also going to launch some premium products and services – so keep your eyes peeled! We want users to have more control in terms of granularity. For example, there may be certain parts of the certificate that users are willing to share, but others, such as past purchase history, that they are unwilling to share. The ability to lock down certain parts of your record would be really valuable to some of our customers. Furthermore, we want to shift the certificate from being a digital representation to being a tradable thing of value. We ultimately want the certificate to live in your wallet because of the flexibility this brings. People will, presumably, want to use the certificate for different purposes and we want to facilitate this. A Fairtrade Art Certificate is also on the horizon….

I see that you have been hiring for quite a few techie roles – what’s great about your startup tech team?

They’re incredibly entrepreneurial, agile and passionate. Everyone who works at Verisart believes the business is a good use of blockchain technology. They are inspired by the potential of the blockchain to create a new standard for certification and want to make sense of the increasing amount of data that is becoming available for people in the art market. At Verisart, we also operate on a flat hierarchy. We value everyone’s ideas and want the entire team to be involved in decision-making, which, I believe, sets us apart! The team is also very experienced. Our CTO, Paul Duncan, was the founding CTO of Borro – the online lending platform for luxury assets. Our VP of Engineering likewise has a strong security background. Peter Todd, a Bitcoin core developer, and Dr. Ahmed Elgammal, Professor of the Art & Artificial Intelligence Lab at Rutgers University, also advise us.

What do you look for in an employee?

A range of things. We look for people that are active listeners – so people that fully concentrate, understand, respond and then remember what is being said. We also want people that are compassionate coachers, so help others understand what they need to do to be better at their job. Most importantly, however, we want people that fully show up and bring their full self to work. To thrive at Verisart, you’ve got to be energetic, entrepreneurial and passionate about our mission! Our mantra is “if you forget all of our values, be kind, show gratitude to others and seek to help and grow the company.”

Do you have any pearls of wisdom for young startup co-founders?

Focus on the narrative of what you’re about to do. Imagine that you have already achieved what you want to achieve – is this the lifestyle that you want? At the end of the day, your company has to support your personal goals. I’m not just talking about financial goals – being a boss can be stressful and the hours are long. Think carefully about whether you want this. Also, being a big storyteller and communicator will really work in your favour! You have to be able to paint a clear picture of your mission, your goals and how you’ll reach them, and why your start up is unique. This will help you secure funding and attract great talent. You also need to be incredibly tenacious as this is the fuel that will get you through your journey. Starting your own business isn’t all plain sailing – there are bumps in the road and you need the determination to keep going. Perhaps the biggest piece of advice I can give, however, is that your choice of startup co-founder is really important. You need to partner with someone that is passionate, driven and shares the same goals as you.

Here at Work in Startups, we are often asked what types of companies we classify as a startup (and similarly, what it takes to make it onto our site!) In the interest of transparency, we thought we’d expand on how we think a “startup” differs from other labels commonly tossed around, such as “scaleup”, “SME”, […]

What is a ‘startup’?

Here at Work in Startups, we are often asked what types of companies we classify as a startup (and similarly, what it takes to make it onto our site!) In the interest of transparency, we thought we’d expand on how we think a “startup” differs from other labels commonly tossed around, such as “scaleup”, “SME”, or even “small business”.

Full Disclosure: it is highly subjective! There is no single, universally accepted definition of a startup. It’s a much more broad-reaching term than others you might hear such as ‘unicorn’ (a privately held startup company valued at over $1 billion). Confusion is possibly rooted in the rise of companies keen to define themselves as a startup (it’s a sexy tag after all), even when they don’t fulfil many of the characteristics that others would deem essential.

What are the features of a startup

In our humble opinion, these tend to be the two key features that differentiate a startup from any old company:

Growth – is it expanding and growing rapidly, in terms of either customers, new jobs or financials? Yes? Potentially this company is a startup! There’s a relatively widely shared blog post on this which goes into much more detail on why this angle is often considered the most important: http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html

Innovative – the startup industry has become culturally synonymous with the concept of disruptive business models. For us, a startup needs to offer something fresh!

Often but not always: a tech focus or component, VC funding (or likely potential to receive/qualify for funding in the near future), some element of risk (not a traditional service with hundreds of comparables), interesting employee perks and an “owner culture” (which could mean equity awards readily available to staff).

Meanwhile, these features can help the eagle-eyed spot where a company is on its journey to unicorn status (i.e. when is it likely no longer a startup):

New – the exact age before a company falls into ‘scaleup territory’ is up for debate: some experts set as low as three-years-old as this cap. We modestly say about five-years-old, absolute maximum ten.

Small – headcount (like age) is a nice marker for when a company has graduated to ‘scale-up status.’ We think this happens when you exceed roughly 100-200 members of staff.

Revenue – as with all of the numbers in this list, a revenue of more than £10 million is a rough metric, to give you a general feel. Effectively: no unicorns allowed!

At Work in Startups, we think that growth (or growth potential) is the most important identifier for startups. While our opinion is based on rather a lot of startup companies and job ads, we wanted to see what our lovely and knowledgeable twitter community thought. Interestingly they had other ideas…

As you can see the results overwhelmingly favoured how recently the company was founded – although it is clear that growth is quite important! This really suggests that checking a variety of metrics (cue our handy-dandy list) is the only way for us to truly hunt the next unicorn!

Note: we include a combination of start up and scale up jobs on our site, as despite the terminology being murky, we tend to find our audience is broadly interested in both. Do feel free to get in touch though if you have any comments on this!